Posted September 11, 2025

Behind the Scenes – Hugh Conacher

Hugh, what drew you initially to the practice of lighting design?

When I was young, I thought I wanted to be a performer; I studied theatre, I studied dance, and I thought I was going to be a wonderful actor. But while I was in theatre school at George Brown College in Toronto, I got interested in the technical side of things. I ended up hanging out a lot in the shop and helping them with the builds, the lighting hangs, and then the installations, and I felt that I was not only good at it, but I discovered that I could also make a living! I could get work easily as a technician and less easily as an actor. And so that was part of it. But in the end, I also realized that I was better at it and better suited to the technical and design worlds. Now, many years later, I don’t think it was a terrible decision.

Tell us a little about how you approach work on a new show.

I like to approach each show as if it’s a brand-new thing to me. And, in fact it is! I try not to work by rote or in a formulaic kind of way, although invariably one does have one’s tricks up one’s sleeve. But I do try to create things that are unique to every show, or that at least cater to the unique needs of each show, whatever they may be. I don’t take an idea that I developed for one show and use it in another show. I try to create things that are unique for every circumstance.

I do lots of work in both theatre and dance. One of the differences between the dance and the theatre worlds is that that in theatre, you can read the script before you agree to do a show, and it will teach you all you need to know, but in the dance world there is no script, so you are learning the work as it is being created specifically for that moment. They are different sets of challenges. I’ve been lucky—I’ve done lots of good shows.

Can you tell us a little about how the technical aspects of lighting design have changed since you first entered the profession?

Since I started, tons of things have changed, obviously—it’s been over forty years. There have been several major improvements in the world of theatrical lighting design. The biggest change has been computers that allow you to program shows in a way that is repeatable and that doesn’t need to be improvised—which is usually an advantage, although not always. Computers also allow you to improvise better (“Busking” is what it’s called in the lighting world). You can improvise quite easily on modern computer lighting boards, and in a more sophisticated way than you used to be able to.

LED lighting fixtures, of course, have also changed everything. Now with one lighting fixture, you can have an infinite variety of colours, which is a huge thing. There are downsides to LED lighting fixtures, in that some of them don’t show off skin tones very well. If you’re doing saturated colours, they’re great, but if you want actual white light for something, you can’t get it with the less competent ones. Another thing that’s really changed since I started is the advent of moving lights: one light that will do any number of different things, provide movement and texture and colour—all sorts of different possibilities with just one lighting fixture. Every light does multitudinous things. Smaller theatres now have the ability to hang fewer lights and yet produce a lot more effects. That can be an advantage from a labour perspective or from a cost perspective whether you’re renting or buying.

Approximately how many shows do you work on in any given year?

It depends on a number of things. It depends on the size of the shows. It depends on where they are. It depends on how much work I want to do in the moment! As I get older, I’m consciously trying to do less, to be perfectly honest. When I started getting more work in big theatres like the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, or the Citadel, or the National Arts Centre, I made a point of deciding that I would not do other things at the same time, because bigger shows pay well enough and you don’t need to work on five things together in order to make a living. So as a result, I’m doing fewer shows now than I used to, but they’re bigger and they involve more commitment.

What are some qualities that you think a good lighting designer needs to have?

A good lighting designer is somebody who’s interested in art. All painting is about light, especially the old masters. Filmmaking is all about lighting. Photography is all about lighting. The world is all about lighting! Everything is about light. I mean, quite literally.

So, a good lighting designer is somebody who is interested in art and art history… Somebody who’s observant and interested in what’s going on around them… Somebody who is able to think for themselves and not simply follow trends… Somebody who is creative and able to come up with their own ideas about things… It’s an unpopular opinion nowadays, I know, but you also need an education. Most of all, you need to be interested in the world around you.